The Future of Europe and the Development of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region

The ongoing global crises force the European Union to urgently question the need to further develop political unity, to allow Member States to move again as protagonists on the international chessboard. But a united political action requires a common political identity, which can only slowly arise from the harmonization of the political identities currently existing. The policies implemented by the institutions of the Union are a tool that can prove useful in the construction of a European political identity, but they are not free from risks: linked to the perception of distance that citizens have with respect to European institutions and the resulting crises of trust and authority. Indications on how to avoid these risks are offered by political anthropology, as shown in his open lesson by Christian Illies, professor at the University of Bamberg (Germany) and visiting professor at the Department of Legal Sciences of the University of Udine. The debate is introduced and moderated by Prof. Gabriele De Anna.

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The reknown sociologist Arpad Szakolczai (professor emeritus at the University of Cork and former professor at the European University Institute in Florence) delivers two open lectures in the Distinguished Lectures Series.

The first lecture (March, 18th) is entitled The Meaning of Europe: The need for a new historical understanding. Start from archaeological evidence, the lecture calss attention to the interactions with the Byzantine world, all but completely ignored so far, and finishes with an account about the joint emergence of “the state” and “the economy”.

The second lecture (March, 19th) is enetiled European Thought: The vagaries of its recent history and focuses on the problematic character of “rationalist” thinking, in particular in the 20^th century, which among others prevented a proper understanding of the problematic characters of the state (the ease by which it can be transformed into a police state) and the economy (commerce extending to and incorporating the whole of life), and in particular the public sphere.